The castle loomed before her like a towering mountain of stone and bronze. Set atop a hill overlooking the rest of Tbilisi, Georgia, the Kazmere Castle sat alone amongst the brick and stone homes beyond the gates. Noting what brought her to the castle in the first place, Nina Chkonia admired the structure with a stern contemplation.

"I can only do this now," Nina had told her boss, Levan, as she studied the article relating to the mysterious disappearance of a teenager at the castle. In fact, it was the eighth disappearance in the Kazmere Castle area in the past few months.

"A brave proposition of you to investigate Kazmere, but you know I cannot sponsor it myself, so you'll have to go alone," Levan had said as she laid out her plan to spend a night in Kazmere Castle itself, a sure way to find out why eight people had gone missing in or around the castle in the past year.

A chill went through Nina's spine as she stepped up the stone façade of the castle. Whistling wind and leaves blew through her hair as she ascended up to the entranceway. The grand entranceway creaked open slowly as she pulled out her notepad. Chills like rasp whispers fell upon Nina as she seized her courage up and entered the castle.

"Well, isn't this grand," she muttered to herself as she took in the cobwebs that were decorating nearly every wall in the castle. There was no light, save for a small skylight that vaguely illuminated the vast hall. Dust and cobwebs were the only things Nina observed. The place looked virtually untouched for years.

"Levan will just love me for this," Nina said as she began toward the exit. She narrowed her eyes as she approached the door. In place of the inviting marble glass entranceway from before, she found herself confronted with the atrocity of a chained up, rotting slab of wood. Nina suddenly felt a thousand different eyes on her as she staggered backward into the abysmal darkness, not knowing where she was. She was dreaming. She had to be dreaming. Nina slammed her eyes shut as a thousand demonic eyes and thrashing arms descended upon her, and then everything went black...

"Should Kazmere fall...let's just say it won't fall without me," Lord Mikheil Kazmere said from atop the bronzed throne. Tbilisi was under siege from Russian and Turkish warriors, and there was little Lord Mikheil could do to keep it from falling. The lord clasped his hands together as he stood up from the throne. He gestured to a dark shadow that suddenly eloped through the doorway. Hushed whispers erupted throughout the brisk hall and Lord Mikheil only grinned ear to ear as the shadow took its place beside him.

"No, nobody will conquer Kazmere Castle. Not now, not ever," Lord Mikheil said as the shadow began to spread across the entire hall. "Never..."

Nina snapped awake as the thick realization settled over her like a thundercloud against the backdrop of a blue sky. She lurched upward to struggle to her feet as she ran for the door again. The flashback haunted her every thought as she made her attempt to escape. Nothing mattered now, nothing but escaping.

"Help me!" she screamed as she rattled against the heavy chains holding the door locked. A deathly cold blew over her shoulder as she shook against the door that turned her world into an icy pit of despair. She fell backward as she slipped on the floor that had turned itself into icy stone. She screamed as the demonic shadow from the flashback suddenly hovered over her. A low, rumbling sound emitted from the shadow, a startling and hellish rasp that could evoke pure fear into the hearts of the strongest men on Earth. Nina struggled to keep her grasp on reality as she felt faint, her vision blurring into a static blur as she tried to hold her balance.

"Stay away!" Nina shouted at the shadow, holding up her notebook as a makeshift shield. The thing just stayed where it was, not bothering to make a single move or even acknowledge her existence. Nina almost sighed relief just as the bony and lopsided fingers landed on her shoulder. She coiled forward, face first onto the icy stone floor. The figure behind her laughed and coughed at the same time, mucus exploding from its mouth. Nina gagged as the stench of death overwhelmed her senses. She found it nearly impossible to keep the contents of her stomach inside her.

"Aye, girl, why is it you find yourself here?" the man asked in a raspy voice. Nina stared blankly at the now visible old man. He wore a hood over his head and had to be almost 100 years old. She knew who he was before he could even introduce himself. She was face to face with the demon of Lord Mikheil Kazmere.

"Why are you in my castle?" he demanded, his voice turning to a thunderous roar that sent Nina flying backward again. The dead lord only laughed again.

"I...I..." Nina struggled to come up with an answer. Mikheil only held up his bony hand to signal there was naught else to say.

"Aye, they always come. And come. And come. But what do all you filthy, brazen, trespassing little rats all have in common? You're all liars!" he growled, grabbing Nina by the throat. "And now you can rot like all the others!" he groaned and threw her down to the ground. She thought for sure she was dead by then. She had to be. Lord Kazmere was gone. The shadow was gone. And she was no longer in the grand hall of the main entranceway. She blinked her eyes to adjust to the newfound darkness. She sucked in a deep breath as she came face to face with the decomposing skull of a long dead person.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," she muttered to herself as hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of skulls and bones came to surround her. Cold, it was so cold down here, she thought. Spiders crawled in and out of the skulls, laying eggs and making webs, and some were leaking blood from eternal eye sockets. She clasped her notebook tightly as she wrote down the minute details of what she had witnessed so far.

"Only. Way. Out. Is. In." a low voice suddenly whispered from behind her. Nina snapped to attention as she swiftly turned her body to face the voice. Nothing was there, nothing but a skeleton hunched over in a fetal position, weeping incessantly.

"Only. Way. Out," the skeleton cried. "Dear God, let me out," it continued to cry as Nina watched in exasperated horror. But it was clear what the weeping skeleton was referring to. Because it was grudgingly pointing with a dead finger toward a small hole that was broken through the wall of skulls...

Nina's mind was in a thousand places at once as she crawled through the imminent wall of death. Grotesque whispers and chills washed over her like a hurricane battering a defenseless beach as she made her way through the deathly shadows of Kazmere Castle. She fought back tears as she found the main hall door unlatched and unsecure, a divine gateway out of the pits of hell. But her fleeting ecstasy was shattered as the door slammed open and in walked two young students with cameras and flashlights. Nina watched in horror as the demonic shadow of Lord Mikheil Kazmere suddenly loomed upward out of the darkness, out of sight of the two newcomers.

"Hello?" they called out, innocently laughing. "We're at the oh so haunted castle!"

"NO!" Nina called out. "NO!" But her silent screams of protests were none other than ghostly whispers and chills that fell upon the two students. They exchanged glances as the door slammed shut behind them and Nina Chkonia fell deeper down into the shadows as the lights went out again in Kazmere Castle.